After the Rain
by YenSerenity
Summary: They said he was a monster. He chased after destruction, while they were helpless... The words were painful to Senritsu's ears. She glanced at Kurapika, and found something else after the rain.


_Author's Note: This takes place after Senritsu and Kurapika leave Leorio, Killua, and Gon; while they are riding the train. I hope you read the whole thing, and enjoy the ending especially._

Senritsu couldn't help but overhear the conversation in the train car beside hers….

"He had his good qualities. Remember that time…."

"I could never forget that. But he never even began to reach his full potential. He didn't let himself. He threw away his opportunities, to chase after destruction."

"He suffered for it; he and the people around him. He was such a disappointment to his friends and family."

"Not just that. He was a terror, to them and to everyone. I don't know how they could bear his company. I certainly would never have put up with it."

"They were…. very patient with him."

"Perhaps patience was not what he needed, though."

"But he needed them! They could not leave him alone when he needed them."

"That may be true, but even though they were always physically present, he refused to talk to them about his problems. He thought he could make it alone. Like all of us, he had his pride; but pride isn't worth dying over."

"His friends cared about him more than he ever imagined, I think. If only he had accepted that, and talked to them, and listened to them!"

"Now he's taken the poor souls with him, and the rest of us are left wondering how they ever could have worried about such a monster."

" I think… they must have seen him as a ruined good person, not a bad person. And nothing he did could change how they loved him. I think they still believed in him. They thought he would change."

"Time has proven they were mistaken. And didn't I tell you this would happen? But no, you wouldn't…"

The man continued his speech, but the woman was not listening to him, because she was now talking as well. Her voice was quiet, as if she was talking to herself. Senritsu's sharp ears barely picked up her murmurings, from one train car over.

"…But they loved him; and love does not abandon. Love is loyal. Certainly things need not have happened as they did…. Oh, there must have been something they could have done for him. There must have been a way, an opportunity, sometime…" Her words were abruptly cut off by the man's firm, somber voice.

"They couldn't do what he would not do for himself, nor could they force him to listen to them or stop what he was doing. He shut them out. There was nothing they could do."

The woman had no response to this.

Senritsu felt her eyes fill with tears as she listened to the woman's muffled sobs. She heard the man attempt to offer some comforting words, and quickly try to change the subject.

But the woman's heartbeat confirmed to Senritsu what she already knew: her sorrow could not be dissuaded so easily. The pain she had spoken of had re-opened a scar in her own heart; and it could only be suffered through again.

Quickly, Senritsu wiped her eyes. She couldn't be seen crying; not in her profession, as a professional body guard; and not on a public train.

She never cried for herself; she had learned to find things about her condition to be thankful for, and she was content to be alive and to be living each day with a purpose. But sometimes, she realized how much people were suffering, and when tragedy and hopelessness were shared within her hearing, Senritsu's musical heart couldn't help but break.

The tears rolled down her round cheeks for several minutes, and Senritsu kept her back to the other passengers in the train car, pretending to be interested in the scenery outside the window. In reality, she couldn't see much of the scenery at all, due to the pouring rain that was making its way down the glass.

Each raindrop that beaded on the window mirrored the tears in her eyes; and the sound of the rain was odious to her ears. But after a while, the tears subsided, and she looked out the window and saw the moving, dripping gray world.

Sure that her face was dry now, Senritsu settled back into her chair, and glanced towards Kurapika.

He was sitting by the door, reading.

His face was still pale and tired-looking from the fever. His heartbeat was slightly tense, as he focused intently on what he was reading, and perhaps the train around him. But, overall, he seemed to have a calm sort of energy about him; the gloom of the winter of his spirit was lifting. He was recovering. He was growing stronger still.

Listening for a moment, she heard that the woman whose conversation she had overheard had also stopped crying. Now, she seemed to be sitting elsewhere in the train, with a group of women who were laughing together over something one of their children had just said.

Senritsu smiled slightly, feeling the tightness of the dried tears on her face and remembering the overheard conversation, sadness and fears that had caused them.

Suddenly Kurapika's blue eyes looked up from the book in his chain-wrapped hand.

He caught her gaze. And, out of nowhere, he smiled.

_Hope_, Senritsu told herself, remembering the sound of the word, as the sun came out from behind the clouds.

Hope was a million melodies to her; pure notes of highs and lows, wind-songs and whispers of waves, sunlight and shadows. Hope took her heart to brighter places and her mind to higher ones, where there was peace. Even after the terror of darkness and the suffering which she could never forget, there was hope.

Kurapika turned back to his book, but his mind was no longer on it.

He knew.

Author's Note:

_I hope you enjoyed it, at least a little. ;)_

_Please leave a review and tell me what you liked, what you didn't like, and any advice you have for this aspiring writer. Thank you for reading, and I hope you have a great day! _

_~Yen Serenity_


End file.
